


What the Water Gave Me

by andnowforyaya



Series: The Descent [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, POV Second Person, Possession
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 06:01:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something off about Stiles when he reappears at the edge of the Preserve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Read the first part here: [The Bottom of the River](http://archiveofourown.org/works/703653)

Before, you smelled the change in the air before you heard it; a metallic shift, rust and blood, flirting at the corners of your lips and seeking entrance. It reeked. Derek noticed the smell, too, but managed to keep it together in front of Jason. His nose twitched at the same time yours did. Then the atmosphere popped, loud and sudden, and Jason jumped nearly out of his seat.

"The fuck was that?" he gasped, putting a hand over his heart in an attempt to self soothe. Derek laughed, low and humorless, trying to put Jason at ease, but you knew that if he had been his Wolf right then his hackles would have been up, and he would have been growling.

"The pipes, probably," Derek lied through his teeth. "They're still new and being broken in." His eyes sought yours out. He looked uncertain, and broke contact to glance at the door to the bathroom.

You didn't know what it was, either. But Stiles was in there, and thinking about him made your chest tighten.

You watched the door. Slowly, Derek shifted his attention back to Jason. You were watching the door so closely that you missed the tiny increments it took as it was being eased open. The hinges did not make a noise. Then, there was space between the wooden door and the frame. Then, there was Stiles.

You sniffed the air subtly.

No. Not Stiles. The rust-blood-metal stench curled into you so deep you could taste it. You coughed, and Derek narrowed his eyebrows.

Stiles-not-Stiles took one shaky step out of the bathroom, and then another, and then another, his brown eyes very wide. You looked again, and Stiles-not-Stiles' eyes flashed like a cat's in direct light, but you blinked and shook it out and it didn't happen again.

Stiles looked wrong, like his skin didn't quite fit over his bones, like a fun-house mirror image that distorted so minutely you think you're looking at the real thing. Jason must have seen it, too. He said, "Woah, woah, you okay?" and regarded Stiles warily, giving the same look to the coffee on the table.

Stiles-not-Stiles said in a voice that carried too many notes, in a voice that could have come out of a child, "Jason. Jason, you're all grown up."

.

Jason went home, red around the eyes but shoulders straight. He seemed lighter. He smiled when he left, chose to walk even though Derek offered to drive, tilted his head funny in the doorway and said, "No one's ever going to believe this. I mean, I'm still - still trying to believe what I heard and saw. Not that anyone needs to know. I'm - I'm glad. Thank you."

He looked at Stiles-not-Stiles and saw little Nate, who was just a bit tired from all this excitement and was curled into himself on the couch. Stiles-not-Stiles smiled at him, too, with thin brittle lips, and then Derek closed the door and Stiles' eyes rolled back into his head.

You were there before you were aware you had moved, cradling Stiles' head and gently lowering him to the couch, heart hammering in your chest at the sudden change and the overpowering smell of _boy_ , returned. The smell of grass and sweat and chemicals from energy drinks, sweet and musky and potent. Stiles was breathing deeply where you had lowered him, out cold as soon as the door had closed, and Derek hovered anxiously - or what amounted to anxious anyway. A combination of anger and confusion and not knowing what to do with his hands. Derek settled for placing them on the back of the couch and glowered at you. "What happened?"

You swallowed. A sudden pit in your stomach that told you it's just going to get worse, but you had no idea how to answer that question, your head buzzing with your own questions, so you let one loose from your lips: "Do you think he'll wake up on his own?"

Derek grimaced.

You both waited.

.

Now, you are holding down your Alpha on the cold metal table in Deaton's back room, your strength no match for his, so that when he bucks you nearly go flying, metal clanging and Deaton mixing powders and juices and strange flora frantically on the counter. "Do something!" you beg, voice wrecked. You found him like this, convulsing beside his Camaro in front of Stiles' house, shattered glass littered around his head like a halo and the boy no where to be found. You smelled him, though. Faintly. Grass and sweat and chemicals.

Derek smells like ashes and asphalt. You hold his shoulders down with your hands, and he nearly socks you in the jaw for the effort. Deaton comes back from the counter, mixing something in a mortar and pestle. He sets it down on the examination table - you eye its precarious location - and dips his finger into the bowl. "Move," he grunts, with a quick jerk of his head. You move without a thought. Derek surges up, roaring, but Deaton just as intently uses one hand pressed against his throat to hold him down and the other to pry his finger between Derek's lips.

He rubs the poultice on his finger into Derek's teeth, and you balk, but just moments later Derek is calming, his eyes clearing and his breathing still short but not quite as heavy or pained. "What was that?" you ask Deaton, marveling at the change. Derek lies limp on the metal surface, still wrapped in his leather jacket but having the appearance of someone deep in sleep.

"That," Deaton says, "was my very special knock-out recipe. Took years to perfect it. To be honest, I wasn't sure it was going to work. But it did. Shouldn't hold him over for too long."

You both watch the rise and fall of Derek's chest, and like Deaton cued it, Derek groans and shifts and rolls over onto his side. You jump back as vomit spills from his mouth and splashes onto the tiled floor.

"Side effect," Deaton says, shrugging. Then he pats Derek lightly on the cheek. Derek swats his hand away, affronted.

You see exactly when awareness hits his senses like a speeding train. He blinks once, and then he sits up so abruptly he nearly collides foreheads with Deaton, who was leaning over him with a stethoscope and trying to listen to his heart. Deaton hangs back, alarm in his features. Derek breathes, "Stiles," looking around the small room as though Stiles could be hiding in the cabinets or under the table. "Where's Stiles?" he asks, looking so suddenly directly at you that you startle.

"I found you. You were alone. We don't know where Stiles is."

Derek growls. He brings his knees up so that he's sitting more comfortably on the table, but cradles his head into the crook of his elbow. "It touched me, and I saw fire," he explains without you or Deaton needing to ask. Your mind latches onto how Derek said _it_ and not _he_. "I was trapped in the fire."

"It was just a hallucination," Deaton assures softly, but he doesn't touch Derek. You imagine smoke curling up from Derek's shoulders. 

"No," Derek chokes out. "No, it wasn't."

.

You think you catch a whiff of his scent the next day, fleeting but potent, when you open a window in Derek's living room. Stiles' scent leaves a heavy stone on your tongue, and lately you have been craving it more and more. But the scent disappears quickly, and you realize it's just a phantom smell, a memory: you want him to return, to come home, so that you can figure this all out together.

The doorbell rings. Derek is already there, sleepy and unfocused in his pajamas pants and thin t-shirt, before you can pick out that it's Scott.

Scott, who is threading fingers through his hair and pulling out pine needles. Who is standing before the threshold and bouncing on his toes. Who curls his lip into a half-smile, half-grimace when he sees you both, ducking his head to hide it. He says, "I was out all night. Nothing." Defeat lines his very bones.

He's wringing something in his hands. You look as he walks in with it, as he takes a seat on the couch. It's a shirt. You breathe in and realize it's Stiles'.

"I thought," Scott says, offering the shirt up like tribute. Derek takes it from his hands and buries his nose into the bundle of fabric, inhaling deeply. Then he surprises you by passing it on to you. "Will it help?"

You inhale. Grass and sweat and chemicals. Ink, underneath it all, and the strange smell of static. A base layer of whiskey. The shirt is soft against the skin of your face. You're pretty sure your eyelids flutter. Derek says, "We'll make it work. We'll find him."

Then, gentler: "You're exhausted. You should get some sleep."

Scott protests with a shake of his head. "He's my best friend, Derek. I can't sleep. We have to find him."

Derek makes a neutral noise but does not press the issue. His eyes flicker red with emotion.

.

The Sheriff is beside himself. He has half of the force out looking for his son, and alerts in every local newspaper and station he and his team could get their hands on, after the second day. It's been raining for the past thirty hours, off and on so that the wooden benches in the park are waterlogged and the streets have cleared. The breath comes out of your mouth in wispy silver clouds.

Rain washes away scent, but Derek doesn't sleep, and neither does Scott, except in short staccato naps, and so neither do you. Allison and Lydia have driven to neighboring towns to put up flyers, and Danny's even gone out of his way to hack into various websites to put up notices. No hits, though.

There's a buzz in this town that's growing with every hour that ticks by, like waiting for a bubble to burst.

You don't have to wait long.

Stiles shows up at the edge of the woods near the preserve the next morning, silver fog drifting in a cloud behind him. He's wearing the same clothes he had been when he disappeared, only they're soaked through and cold, and when Derek finds him - he smelled him before he woke after finally succumbing to sleep, rushing out in his pajamas, and you followed after a moment's hesitation - Stiles is trembling like a leaf, lips blue and eyes glazed.

He barks at you to dial 911, but you're already on it, eyes following the movement of his arms as he peels the wet clothes from Stiles' skin and pulls his own shirt off to cover him. Just days ago Derek had been driven to convulsions and hallucinations at his mere touch, but now he wraps himself around Stiles, who closes his eyes and burrows into the warmth, and you feel a sudden spike of something in your stomach. It curdles and lays there, dormant.

You breathe in his scent before emergency services arrives, and it is sharp and fresh and familiar. But your senses snag on something at the end, a lazy lagging note that doesn't sing until the whole blended perfume has nearly taken over you. Rust. And blood.

If Derek smells it, too, he doesn't show it. He rubs feeling back into Stiles' back, into his arms, murmuring something soft and private between them, and Stiles turns his nose into Derek's bare neck.

.


	2. Chapter 2

The hospital is bleach and dust and dying flowers in stagnant water. You wrinkle your nose at the combined odors and try to focus on Stiles, whose eyes are moving behind paper-thin eyelids, whose skin is still tinged with blue. He's been in hospital ever since Derek found him, sleeping mostly while doctors try to explain how he's alive despite his lowered core temperature, coming to wakefulness sporadically to blink dazedly at the doctor's and nurse's questions. He tells them: he remembers Derek dropping him off at his house; and then he remembers the woods.

His eyes flicker to yours and to Scott's and to his dad's, and you know there's more. But the cold keeps him lethargic and always on the brink of sleep, and he succumbs easily. Now, he's nestled under an electric blanket, and there's a small space heater by his bed that's constantly humming, but even so when you lay the back of your hand on his cheek it comes away cold.

You've been sitting by him since this morning, after you charmed your way in through a young nurse; Derek ordered you to watch him while he went to Deaton or Lydia or whatever, but you would have watched him, anyway, you did not tell him. Stiles has his hooks somehow sunk into you, and you don't mind.

You're not sure how it happened. It must have been a slow thing. Stiles was just always _there_ \- a steadier rock than Derek, who even now sometimes behaved like a lone wolf, so steeped in his habits. Derek's your Alpha, but you think it's Stiles who keeps the pack together. You think, Stiles is fiercely loyal, which in turn inspires fierce loyalty. But then you remember how he clung to Derek in the woods and think that loyalty does not quite capture the feeling.

His arm lies above the sheets, pale and limp and so very un-Stiles. Your fingers are drawn to the skin, a barely noticeable spark passing through you both before you lay your hand on his arm, willing your warmth to pass through you like a conduit and into him. You watch as the skin just below your fingers turns rosy and then pink, the color gradually moving up his arm, and then a shiver passes through you, just barely. You pull your fingers away, and Stiles stirs.

You frown; you didn't mean to wake him.

"..zac?" you think he mumbles, curling minutely towards you, dark eyelashes fluttering against his skin. He opens his eyes completely and your heart lurches into your throat.

"Yeah, yeah, how are you feeling?" you ask him, voice soft.

He smiles at you. "Warm," he rasps. "Did you do your wolfy thing?"

"I wasn't sure it would work. I mean, the cold isn't really _pain_ , is it?" There is no answer, and you frown again as Stiles' eyes lose focus. "You can go back to sleep, you know." You bring your hand up to his forehead, like your mom used to do when she checked for fevers, and nearly extend your claws at the sudden vice grip Stiles has around your wrist. Your fingers hover over his skin. "Stiles?"

Stiles looks at you but sees something else, eyes dark and lips parted. You're losing feeling in your fingers and try to jerk your wrist away, but his grip is like stone, and you can't budge. "Stiles!" you ask, more urgently. "What's wrong? Let go. What's wrong?"

Your phone is in your back pocket. Awkwardly, you reach behind you and pull it out, beginning to type on the screen one-handed, when you hiss at the sudden sharp sting of cold where Stiles' fingers press into your flesh, and then his grip loosens. His arm falls back to the covers and you hear him take an exaggerated inhale. Instantly you are on your knees by the bed, phone dropped in a clatter to the floor, as Stiles tries to breathe. You've seen this before, you've helped him through this before, but as you get your hands on his shoulders to help him focus, Stiles looks at you and this time you _do_ extend your claws, though thankfully just as quickly leap back, shock painting your features - his eyes are _black_ , shot through and ink-like, as he struggles to subdue his breathing.

You stare. You gradually become aware of the beeping in the room, the frenzy of it. Stiles pound a fist against his chest and squeezes his eyes shut, and when he opens them again they are back to honey-brown, but his heart is still racing, and not a moment later two nurses rush in, and you fall back against the far wall as they check Stiles' stats and help him back into bed. 

One of the nurses notices your presence and says, not unkindly, "You're going to need to wait outside, please," a gentle shove accompanying her words. You leave silently, staring. Stiles' eyes drift shut when they do something to his IV, but not before he spares you another fleeting glance, and in that one glance you see his plea, but don't know what to make of it.

.

Fingers snap in front of your face. "Isaac!"

Derek looms over you. You look up your alpha, tilt your head slightly to show the tender skin of your neck. You hear him. You will answer him. "I'm processing," you tell him truthfully. You can't stop seeing the inky blackness of Stiles' eyes. It had been so brief that it could have been imagined. But the panic had not been. Derek's heartbeat had spiked at your words, but the only outward change in his appearance had been his knuckles turning white as he clenched his fists.

"I think Stiles knows more than he's letting on," you admit finally, choosing your words carefully. "I think he's trying to protect us."

Derek mumbles, "Isn't he always," and you know it's not meant to be answered, so you duck your head instead and continue, "And I think it's getting worse."

A quick breath. Scott has always smelled a little bit of the hospital because of his mother, but now he carries the scent with him more than ever. "You mean worse than being missing for two days and coming back with no memories?"

You don't answer, and that's answer enough.

"He can't stay at the hospital for much longer," Derek decides. "If he really is getting worse. We can't risk him having an episode like that with one of the staff."

"An _episode_ ," Scott repeats with disbelief. "He's not, like, a crazy person!"

"I'm not saying he is," Derek explains calmly. "I'm saying that maybe the hospital, that's populated by _humans_ , may not be the best place for him to recover."

"So what are you suggesting?" you ask.

That causes Derek to shift on his feet. It is a moment before he can answer. "He can stay here."

Scott scoffs. "Yeah, that'll go over well with the Sheriff."

"The Sheriff and I aren't really walking on eggshells around each other anymore." Derek narrows his eyes at Scott, but Scott has never been able to take the cues for submission as naturally as you have.

"He can stay at mine," Scott offers. "My mom can make sure he's okay…and if anything weird happens - " He shrugs. "Well, she took the whole werewolf thing pretty well."

Derek's shoulders stiffen, but you can tell he's thinking about it. Personally you are more concerned about the hospital letting Stiles be discharged at all - you've heard the conversations between some of the staff there, how his case is so unprecedented, how some of them are itching to run tests, to probe and question and examine. Finally, Derek nods.

"Make sure your mom's okay with it, and I'll talk to the Sheriff."

"Don't you think maybe _I_ should talk to Stiles' Dad?" Scott protests, a tiny frown shaping his lips. You silently agree with him. Derek would likely botch any viable explanation for Stiles staying at Scott's for the foreseeable future. What he said was true - he and the Sheriff were no longer so cautious around each other, but neither were they on friendly terms. You have the feeling that Stiles' father is wary of Stiles' friends, and of Derek most of all. Sometimes you see him on the periphery giving you and Scott a look that you imagine he would direct to a difficult jigsaw puzzle. He has most of the pieces but is just missing that one key piece that would fit them all together.

Derek growls, quickly losing patience with Scott's continuous disregard for his authority. You think he should be used to it by now.

"Fine," he grumbles. "He'll respond better to you, anyway."

Scott sits up a little straighter, after that.

.

Days later, Scott drags a futon into his room and insists that Stiles take the bed while he's staying. He brings a space heater into the little area even though he knows he's going to be burning up with just the thought of being enclosed in a room with a personal heater, considering how hot you guys run. 

Stiles puts up a fuss about the futon - he'll take it, he's the guest, after all, and Ms. McCall is going above and beyond - but his dad is there helping him get settled and he gives him one stern, worried look, and Stiles falls silent, flings himself onto the sheets. "Fine," he pouts. "But I'm not going to be some bedridden invalid, got it?"

The Sheriff rolls his eyes, but before he leaves he rubs a hand over Stiles' forehead, cups the back of his neck where he's sitting now on the bed. A private moment, and you look away to focus on helping Scott fit the futon with a pillow fortress. Stiles' father breathes a heavy sigh. It is dark with weariness and worry and warmth. After a moment, he says, "I love you, son."

You chance a glance, and wish you hadn't. Stiles is looking up at his father with big watery eyes, and you can hear the quickening pace of his heart in his chest. His father's is a slow, steady beat. Strong and secure. Stiles heart patters the way it would before a confession, building up and up and up until the secret spills straight from your lips. But even as you strain to listen, Stiles' heartbeat slows and he swallows, and instead of confessing Stiles says, "I know; I love you, too, Dad," in a voice that breaks.

.


End file.
